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Hundreds of thousands of Quebecers were without power on Tuesday, as high winds swept across parts of the province.
At the height of the outages, more than 315,000 Hydro-Quebec clients were in the dark, with the number dropping to below 80,000 by 8:30 p.m.
The hardest hit regions include the Montérégie, Lanaudière, Laurentians, Montreal, Laval and the Capitale-Nationale area, with Premier François Legault saying in a publication on X that officials are monitoring the situation.
Hydro-Québec says the outages were caused by high winds, with gusts reaching up to 90 kilometres per hour in some areas, and going as high as 120 kilometres per hour in others.
In the Greater Montreal area, several Lester B. Pearson School Board schools were closed due to those outages including:
- Soulanges Elementary School.
- Pierrefonds Community High School.
- West Island Career Centre.
Travel was also hampered with the Exo commuter train service reporting weather-related delays and cancellations on its website Tuesday morning. The affected lines were the Vaudreuil-Hudson and Saint-Jérome lines with some departed trains close to three hours late.
In an email statement to CBC, Exo explained that service on line 11-Vaudreuil-Hudson line was disrupted after a tree fell near the Lachine garage, in the area of the Montreal West train station.
“The tracks were cleared around 10:30 a.m., allowing service to resume,” Exo said. “In addition, the strong gusts of wind observed this morning caused slowdowns on the line, due to a speed restriction imposed by the CPKC, the owner of the line.”
In a notice on its website, Hydro-Quebec said more than 1,100 workers have been dispatched to restore power as quickly as possible.
Several areas of Quebec are under Environment Canada yellow wind warnings, including the Greater Montreal area and along the St. Lawrence valley stretching east along the river all the way to the Gaspésie region.
Simon Legault, a meteorologist with Environment Canada said what we’re seeing is the tail end of a big system that brought really warm conditions to parts of Quebec on Monday.
Legault said the winds, concentrated in the St. Lawrence valley are caused by the warmer air mass from Monday colliding with an incoming mass of cold air.
From damaged homes to downed power lines and icy sidewalks, Tuesday’s storm led to widespread outages, some transit delays and school closures.
Legault said wind gusts between 85 and 100 kilometres per hour are expected, with winds expected to die down later Tuesday.
“So everybody is going to get some high winds at some point during the day and maybe [the] evening for the eastern part of the province,” he said.
On its website Environment Canada said the winds could cause damage to structures such as roofs, fences and soft shelters and warned of an increased risk of injury from falling or flying debris.
In Trois-Rivières, Que., the wind ripped the roof off a residential building and while no one was injured, it landed and damaged a nearby parked car.
A previous yellow wind warning affecting parts of the Eastern Townships early this morning has ended.
There is also a snow squall warning affecting parts of the Outaouais region, the Laurentians and the Mauricie, with blowing snow and heavy flurries expected in some areas.
Environment Canada said motorists should prepare for quickly “changing and deteriorating ” road conditions.
Legault said the same system that brought mild temperatures on Monday also caused a severe winter storm to slam into Quebec’s Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, prompting the closure of several schools.
And while the storm there is waning, winds are affecting road conditions with several school boards delaying or cancelling school bus services. The Centre de services scolaire (CSS) de Rouyn-Noranda announced that morning classes were cancelled but daycare services remained open.
